


John's New Caregiver

by Mr_Sophistication



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26644711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Sophistication/pseuds/Mr_Sophistication
Summary: John found a new caregiver for himself.
Relationships: The Deep | Kevin/The Homelander | John, The Homelander | John/Madelyn Stillwell
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [约翰的新保姆](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419621) by [Mr_Sophistication](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_Sophistication/pseuds/Mr_Sophistication). 



> This is translated from my own work. Non-native speaker alert.

The first twenty years of Kevin's life were spent trying to get himself squeezed into Vought.

He really tried. He joined the Teenage Chastity Auxiliary under Vought's name, then got kicked out because he couldn't smoke cigarettes, and other stuff. His satchel opened wide like a cloth corpse, spitting out a couple of marine magazines. That's its innards. His half-blind goldfish friend pounded and screamed on the ground.

 _What's wrong, Kevin?_ It said in Morgan Freeman's voice. _I feel so weird._

Kevin couldn't speak. He was breathing heavily himself. The gills were all open, but the air seemed to loathe his respiratory system so much that it didn't want to serve him. Thirteen-year-old Kevin and everything he owned was dumped on the side of the road. Vehicles sped by.

He remembered how he'd saved his dying friend on the ground. In the early nineties, a group of scientists was keen to investigate the mysteries of fish vision, so they did all sorts of experiments. They injected cornstarch directly into the eyes of goldfish to see if they could continue to navigate using lateral lines. The blind fish, created in bulk, dashed around, unaware that they had been injured by themselves. The fish tank was a mess of excrement and blood.

Kevin was too scared to move when he heard about it. _So what happened to you guys?_ He asked. His wise friend was silent for a moment, his wounded fishtail swinging a few times, and answered him: _And then we died. I met you, so I will die later._

 _You can't think like that!_ Kevin lost his voice and screamed. He screamed at the sewer like a child who'd never seen a Stephen King's work. Then he reached out and helped the fish out of the floating condoms and broken bottles as if a second too late, it would die in peace, and he'd see the tender white maggots crawling out of its bulging belly in a thousand nightmares.

 _I shouldn't have brought you here._ At the moment, Kevin looked at the dying goldfish and realized that he was crying like a sissy. _I just wanted to share something. I wanted to share you with them. You know so many things._

 _I swam farther. That's all._ The goldfish comforted him. Its fins quivered, the droplets of water on them stolen by gravity. _I've swum far enough, Kevin. Let me go._

 _Nonsense._ Kevin bounced up and held the goldfish, completely forgetting about his bag. He began to run wildly, tears mingling. _I know there's a pool or a fire hydrant nearby. You just need water. Listen to me, you just need water._

 _It's you I need._ The fish answered. _Don't send me to the water, Kevin. Listen to me._

_Why?_

_I don't want to die in the water._ It answered. _Kevin, look, I've swum so many places, I know water. But I don't know the land, just as you don't know the ocean. We should ...... eventually, we should go where we don't know._

 _...Where we don't know._ Kevin repeated its words. _But I'm a freak in every places. That's not going to change._

 _Oh, fuck you._ Fish said. _You're a fucking hero, idiot._

Kevin buried it. Five minutes later, Fake Morgan Freeman was dug up by his neighbor's cat and barely half-eaten. Maybe the starch in its eyeballs had gone moldy. Maybe that was why the other half was not tasty enough.

That was the first time Kevin had ever associated himself with the word "hero."

\--

"Are you sure you want to use this as a personal statement for your interview preparation?"

Roxy felt her teeth go dry. She realized it was because she'd been maintaining a disgusted expression for too long. "Please, you sound like a pervert."

"But I'm already here." Kevin looked at her uneasily. His Oceanarium souvenir hoodie was covered in cold sweat underneath, his lips quivering and dry from the exercise he'd just gone through. "I've changed it several times. But no one helped me. What did everyone else do?"

Roxy looked at him like she was looking at an ugly modern painting that was about to be replaced.

"People just talk about how much they love Marilyn Monroe." She finally said that and pushed the vacuum cleaner farther away.

Kevin was dying of anxiety. Every now and then he'd think of that goldfish again. He wondered if it too had given up in this seemingly eternal anxiety and given itself over to death. It didn't have a single friend. Maybe it didn't recognize Kevin. Kevin was just a human imbecile with gills, far from its wisdom and vicissitudes. Maybe it hated Kevin. Hated that it had been saved by an idiot and therefore had to be that idiot's friend. And now the idiot was consuming their friendship just to squeeze into a volunteer slot he didn't deserve in the first place.

He thought the cleaning lady from earlier was hot. Talking to her put him at ease a little. Imagining her naked on the other hand would make him feel a little happier. Escape the immediate dilemma of waiting for an interview. Maybe she was waiting for him in the front cubicle, with her red hair down and a tattoo of some ex-boyfriend on her arm. She must be experienced and would therefore teach him what to do to make her happy. She wouldn't expect him to know everything, she'd love the way he was silly, kissing his cold sweat, his erect ego.

Kevin was hard.

His sweatpants tightened for a moment. Now he's in big trouble. Kevin looked up at the monitor and felt the mockery in the claustrophobic lens. He tried several times, but he couldn't get it to go soft. The interviewer next to him looked oddly at him, then moved to another row. Again, he wanted to die.

A blonde assistant and a middle-aged man in a lab coat sat in front of him. Kevin realized he had been out of the hallway for a while and was sitting in the room where the interview was taking place. It was as if he had magically lost a small piece of his memory.

"The position you're applying for is very competitive, you know." The blonde said. Kevin didn't dare look at her. Her voice was pouring down like light. He could only nod. "And although it wasn't directly mentioned ...... we thought we'd see more female applicants."

Kevin looked up in confusion, only to realize that behind the two was a huge mirror. He could see himself perfectly.

"Do you consider yourself 'pleasant and communicative'?" The girl asked.

"I, uh, I guess so. I can talk to the fish ......"

The girl bowed her head and ticked off. "How would you respond to a crying child?"

There seemed to be something muffled on the other side of the mirror. The man got up and left, presumably to deal with some technical glitch.

"Kevin?"

"I'll - I know how to...I mean, I know why kids usually cry." Kevin answered. He was still nervous. "They want to be noticed and then taken care of ...... to be treated differently."

He thought it was a bit clueless himself.

The girl didn't say anything. He had the audacity to look her over. She looked young but seemed more sophisticated. Maybe she wasn't much older than him. Seventeen? Eighteen? He wasn't sure. He'd just turned sixteen and rushed in to sign up.

"How well do you think you're handling yourself in a crisis?"

The goldfish bounced on the pavement. "Good." Kevin replied. "I pay attention to the tides."

The girl seemed amused. She looked at him as she took notes. Kevin's face began to turn hot.

"Do you know anything about what you'll be doing after that?" That was probably the last question, as she relaxed somewhat in her chair and looked at her watch carelessly.

"Uh, I know it's volunteering. Maybe help you guys pass out flyers, promote some new products, and then ......" become a hero. "I could do something, you know? I can dive very deep and ......"

The man returned.

"You just said you could do what?" He asked. Kevin noticed that he was breathing heavily and seemed to be in a bad mood.

"......I was about to say that I could talk to fish."

They whispered for a while. The man looked at Kevin several times. The woman, on the other hand, stared back suspiciously.

"This might be a little sudden." The man said. He touched a hand to his head as if he were facing the end of the world. "You got the job."

Kevin stiffened.

The woman looked at him too. This time there was a hint of disgust in her gaze. But she quickly smiled. "That's right, Kevin. I think the decision is made."

"But I haven't-"

"This is Madelyn Stillwell, my assistant." The man said. "As for me, you can call me 'Doctor'."


	2. Chapter 2

Kevin got a whole bunch of brochures. But most of them were the ones he'd already collected. He also had a door card with a picture of the one he'd taken in his first year of high school. It looked lame with not even a beard on his face.

He'd also gotten some souvenirs. A pencil, cap, and T-shirt with Vought's name on it.

But he didn't get any training. He searched the brochures and couldn't find out exactly which one he was in for this project. He called Madelyn Stillwell, but she said she was in the shower and advised him to take it easy.

So Kevin took it easy. Wearing a Vought T-shirt, Vought cap, and his own jogging pants (the kind with the looser crotch he'd purposely chosen), he swiped his gate card from the edge of the fence and passed through an incredibly long tunnel before finally arriving at a huge building.

Madelyn was waiting for him by the steps. She was carrying a parasol, and he could see the freckles on her face looming in the shadows. It made her very beautiful all at once.

"You're early." She looked at him in a funny way as if she couldn't understand his enthusiasm. "And you're dressed......" she pondered for a moment, unable to find the right adjective, so she gave up. "The Doctor won't be here with us today."

She led him inside. Kevin changed elevators about four or five times, so much so that he was no longer sure exactly where he was. In the last elevator, he couldn't help but speak.

"What do you need me to do?"

Madelyn didn't run away from any questions this time. She shrugged. "The ones we asked you about. We need you to be pleasant, to deal with the crying baby, and the crisis."

The elevator doors opened. An apparently much emptier corridor was exposed. It's clean and smooth, like the birth canal of some electronic bionic man.

The corridor was long, seemingly lit all night, and Kevin could feel the tired heat radiating from the high-tech fluorescent shades over his head.

Madelyn walked forward without turning her head. But her back was tight, her suit-clad body trembling slightly under the support of her heels. She was afraid. Kevin didn't know what she was afraid of. Maybe fear was a new corporate culture. He looked wistfully at the slight swing of her hips.

"The agreement you signed," Madelyn spoke with her voice hollow and distant in the hallway. She looked back at Kevin, and for a moment, Kevin caught the greenish-blue part of her eyes. "I know you're probably looking at this rather briefly, Kevin. But I have to reiterate it to you - that's the rule, too."

She stopped and Kevin almost crashed into her.

"What?"

Madelyn did not speak for a moment. She seemed at once to be filled with some unknown conscience. She gazed at Kevin with a tenderness that made him stiffen.

"No matter what happens, you can't leave without permission." She said. "This hallway is the only way out. If you need help, you can push the button and wait for us to come in."

Kevin looked at her in confusion. "Come in?"

Madelyn looked at the end of the hallway. She didn't answer Kevin's question and seemed to regret saying too much earlier. She turned around and continued on her way. Kevin hesitated for a few seconds and followed her.

At the end of the corridor was a small door. Kevin noticed that the door frame wasn't much higher than his own head. Maybe if he was two years longer he'd have to keep his head down to get in.

"Wait." He called out to Madelyn as she took out her door card. "Don't we need a ...... security check or something?"

Madelyn didn't even look back this time. She swiped her door card and the small white door slid open in two parts. There were two, or more, doors inside. She stepped sideways across the room to make room.

"I can't go further." She said. "Don't worry about the security check." She smiled. "You're not going to hurt anyone in there."

Kevin stepped away from her, feeling her gaze still on his back. He suddenly had a very frightening feeling: maybe this was the last time he'd see Madelyn. He hadn't even seen her in the shower yet.

He walked through the two doors alone. The last one was extraordinarily thick, like the door to a vault in a movie. As he walked in, he measured the thickness of the door so that he got distracted.

"Hi."

Kevin winced and looked around for the source of the voice.

He found himself in a room that wasn't too large. All six sides of the room were covered with something like a soundproof sponge. The material seemed expensive and made a small noise under his sneakers as he walked in an expensive desert.

The lighting was slightly dimmer than in the hallway, making it more comfortable for the eyes. There were no overhead lights, like in a fancy home, and the light spilled out from all sides of the ceiling and cast nicely on his face. There were plastic blocks on the soft floor of the room, and a half-assembled warship was stranded on the weave.

In the back of these, a blond boy of about ten years old stared at Kevin.

Kevin was stunned. He didn't understand why he suddenly couldn't move under the boy's gaze. He remained in the same position he had just entered and watched as the boy jumped off the cot and walked towards him. Kevin felt like one of those silly little creatures on nature shows that accidentally wandered into the predator's territory.

The boy held out his hand to him, and Kevin realized he was waiting for his handshake.

"I'm John." The boy said, with a smile on his face.

The smile made Kevin a little uncomfortable. It was too standard, like those kids in the toothpaste commercials would do, showing too many teeth, and all of a sudden it was impossible to tell if it was a threat or a gesture of friendship.

Kevin took John's hand, which was slightly warmer than his, and drew back quickly.

"You're Kevin," John said in a commanding tone. His blue eyes blinked, showing an extremely intelligent look. "I know you."

"You know me?"

"Sure." John sat back on the bed. He was obviously looking up at Kevin, but Kevin felt like he was being looked down on. "I chose you."

There was silence. Kevin laughed. He had to laugh, or he might go crazy.

"I thought I was here to sort out the paperwork," Kevin said. "I'm here to sort out the paperwork."

"Do you know why I picked you?" John watched him patiently.

But Kevin was on the verge of collapse. He crouched down in a corner of the room and wiped his face.

"I'm not going to give...... I thought I was here to do more, I - I'm not here to take care of your kids, for fuck sake. Japanese are killing whales, and you guys are making me -"

He flew up suddenly, his neck hurts. A small hand gripped it securely. John floated in front of him, strangling his neck with just one hand so that he couldn't reach the floor with his back against the wall. The children's sneakers were dangling, and it seemed like an instant for the boy to get here from the other end of the room. A little wind hit Kevin in the face, carrying the smell of cleaner. It was John's scent. The boy looked at him, the blond bangs on his forehead blown up by the wind, his blue eyes now glowing red, burning so hot the air was scorching.

"You can't say that word." John said softly. They were so close that Kevin's eyes reflected the boy's face. John admired his own reflection for a moment, before continuing. "No one can say that word here. Ever."

The boy reached out a hand and pressed it precisely to Kevin's chest. A heart beat wildly under that little hand. John was a little distracted by this, and he pressed it, making that heart beat even faster.

"And, Kevin." He said. "You shouldn't have interrupted me. That was rude."

He withdrew his hand and Kevin didn't move.

John frowned. "Kevin?"

Kevin nodded. It took a few more seconds for the red glow in John's eyes to disappear. He backed away a little. Kevin hit the ground and became one of a kind with the warship.

"The button." Those were the first words Kevin uttered. "Where's the button? I need-"

John sat on the floor fiddling with his blocks. Kevin began to smash the door and the boy turned a deaf ear, crushing a complete block into red powder and then looking at the remnants of his palm.

He played with the third block this way, before getting up and walking towards Kevin. John rejoiced as he watched Kevin try to shrink into a corner at his approach.

"There was never a button. And," He looked at Kevin and said in the voice of a boy who had just come home from school. "I think you just peed your pants."


	3. Chapter 3

John hasn't been in a good mood lately.

The cause was his accidentally ruining his blanket. John's eyes could see through its fragile weave, how the slender fleece was mechanically and uninterestingly woven together to create unnecessary warmth for his nights.

And the truth was that he had overestimated it. Giving it the attention and trust it didn't deserve. John trusted that it would stay with him until he no longer needed it.

It was just the oldest toy he'd ever had.

This was the way of John's world. Doors open, new toys are brought in, he admires them and inevitably ends up destroying them.

Most of the time they don't complain, being broken down into whatever shape John wants them to be. Other times they screamed, cried, and begged for mercy. This occasionally made John feel as if he had done something wrong.

When such moments come, John goes back to his blanket. The skin that never hurts statices under the plush and feels like it's touching the edge of a toy. It made him feel safe.

There were some exceptions, too. Exceptions sent by the Doctor.

The Doctor seemed to have existed from the very beginning of time. Through the door, John could recognize the shape of his skull. He could see the mints and pen in his pocket.

The Doctor sends John some adults who are similar to him. Mostly women. John was curious about them. Their voices were soft and lilting, while their hearts beat high. They taught him how to put together blocks, played him videos, and occasionally, very, very occasionally, they shivered and touched his hair.

When he hugged one of them the way he saw in the video, something inside her cracked.

It made him feel excited. He felt that he was really having an effect on her. John felt intimacy in that brief hug. He pressed her hard against him. She was light for him. Her scent burrowed into his olfactory senses, the still-warm flesh beneath her clothing, the slow spreading of blood beneath her skin, glistening under his penetrating vision.

This moment was so precious because, in the next second, the room was ringing with alarms. It seemed like the whole world flooded in and she was ripped from John's arms and dragged away. There was a long, deep red mark on the floor. The air reeked of metal.

John, in his blanket, saw the Doctor standing in the doorway. A peppermint crashed against his teeth.

He was eating candies when John panicked.

John remembered the moment. He stayed in his blanket until the smell of too much cleaner washed into his nose and no trace of the lady remained in the room. He floated in the middle of the room and felt something sink into a chunk of his chest. John didn't like the feeling.

From this day forward, he omitted admiring it. Everything that was delivered to him, everything that was a fragile object made of a combination of atoms, he dissected them and melted them with his eyes.

He'd tried so many times just to recreate the feeling that embrace had brought him. He wanted that intimacy with warmth. To trace that moment when he became one with his toys, a moment when they became something more whole.

Sometimes he didn't even have the patience to wait for them to finish their names.

But there was nothing. The scent of the young girl was no longer there. Even when he broke the exact same place, the thing that made him tremble for himself was never there again.

It rattled John to the core.

For the last time, no one poured in. The door opened, but there was silence. A few seconds later, the Doctor walked in.

He looked a little helpless. John watched him warily.

They seemed to just keep watching each other. There was something about the Doctor that made John a little uneasy. He crouched down beside the body, not minding at all that his shoes were stepping on the blood.

"We need to talk, John." He said.

The feeling that he had done something wrong came back. John stood up and the blanket fell from his lap. He didn't pick it up.

The Doctor reached up and closed the corpse's eyes. John noticed she had golden-brown eyes that looked good in the fluorescent light.

"I think you did it on purpose," The Doctor said.

John didn't speak for a moment. He watched the blood spread across the floor and had a sense of relaxation.

He realized it was what his eyes had seen. It was them that flowed in those tiny pipes. But these people didn't start to panic until it flowed out. No one ever considered that this was what John saw every day.

"No," John spoke up. "I think _you_ did it on purpose."

He tilted his head up, knowing he looked handsome. So he smiled, trying to fit the image.

The Doctor seemed a little surprised. He exhaled two breaths of minty air and looked at John with a kind of respect. Waiting.

"You did it on purpose." John's boldness grew. "You know I'll break them. You know it every time. But you send in new ones every time."

"It's a test," The Doctor replied. "I need to make sure you won't hurt anything - anyone - weaker than you."

If this were twenty years from now, John would pull the tiny notepad out of the Doctor's pocket, tear out one of the pages, and ask him: _So, can you make sure you can squeeze it and travel around the world without leaving a single crease? Can you make sure your sweat doesn't corrode it? Every breath you take takes away a little piece of its fiber, fuck you._

And the Doctor will answer: _I can't. But that's why I wanted you to be able to do it. You should be better than us, and you've let me down._

But now, John just stared at me for a moment. "Why can't you give me something that's less likely to get broken?" He said loudly. "That's not fair!"

His voice echoed weakly through the room. The Doctor didn't answer his question. There was a body between them, but no one cared about that.

"Is this what you want, John?" The Doctor asked. "Less likely to get broken?"

John had a vague sense that there was some kind of trap in the question. But he couldn't tell. He finally nodded.

The Doctor got up and prepared to leave. John followed him. "You'll give it to me?"

The Doctor turned his head to look at him. "No." He replied calmly. "It's something you can do, John."

"You're lying!"

The Doctor didn't say another word. He looked at the blanket beside John's bed. It was whole and harmless.

John chased his gaze, and a hot flush ran up his cheeks. He didn't even know this feeling was called "humiliation" yet. He floated on the spot, shaking with anger, and allowed the Doctor to leave the room.

This time, no one came to clear the floor. He spent the night with the body. Her golden-brown eyes melted in their sockets. And he could hear the bacteria inside her eating her body.

John found himself being afraid, probably for the first time in his life. But he didn't understand why. So he just curled up in a ball on the bed, letting the blanket protect him.

The next day, the body was gone, a gaping hole in his blanket made by the countless fearful rolls he'd made during the night.

John looked at the gaping hole. Kept looking into the section where the threads had fallen off.

The new lady walks in the door, and John is oblivious. She called his name softly and he turned around, the back of his hand still wiping his eyes.

This day, John was extraordinarily obedient.

He didn't touch her at all. Occasionally, his eyes swept over her blond curls, her dress that was no different than the ones before it. Nodding at the sounds she made in response. He could feel her growing relaxed. Because she wasn't always smiling anymore.

At the end of that day, John floated up and looked at the security cameras in the corner. "I'm doing all right, aren't I?"

No response.

"I want to choose for myself," John said. "I've proven I can do it, so now I want to choose a new toy." He paused for a moment and added. "A new person."

The door opened. The Doctor stood outside the door. Behind him was the lady.

John looked at them as if they too came from the overly colorful world of the video.

"In the future, you don't get to choose the people you serve," The Doctor said.

John didn't fully understand what he was saying. He looked at the woman behind the Doctor and noticed that she didn't seem as old as the Doctor. She had taken off her makeup and was also wearing a lab coat, her hair tied in a ponytail. It was better looking than she had looked in the room.

She avoided his gaze.

"I don't want a teacher," John said. "I don't want firemen, policemen, and car mechanics. I don't want gardeners, lawyers, and doctors. Not carpenters, not Galileo, not the Czar. I don't want any of that."

The Doctor looked at the lady behind him. She spoke a little apologetically. "That was today's lesson."

"What do you want, John?" The Doctor asked gently.

John laughed. He knew he was going to win and would continue to win.

"Friend." He said. "I want a friend."


	4. Chapter 4

"But why?"

The look on Kevin's face when he asked this was sympathetic. He shrank into the corner of the room, trying to take up the least amount of space.

The educational video in the projector was still playing. John stood in front of the white light from the projector, his blue eyes conforming to Nazi standards not blinking from the glare.

His small figure tore at the image, distorted colors and lines gliding around his face that still retained a bit of baby fat.

John stared at Kevin as if the latter was what he needed to learn for this class.

"I told you why." He floated a little impatiently. Kevin looked like he was going to dig a hole in the wall and get back in. "Because I picked you. I wanted to pick you, that's all."

John doesn't forget to smile. There was a little fuzzy noise in Kevin's throat. He knew it was him killing a scream.

"But I wouldn't - I didn't know how to react...I thought ......"

He looked at John and realized he was counting on his confused logic to be completed by a ten-year-old.

And John helped him.

"You can't do anything." He affirmed. "You can't sing to me, you can't interpret this stuff for me." He floated to one side, allowing the projector to function properly. "You can only piss your pants in front of me."

A mischievous grin appeared on John's face as he said the last bit. He looked like one of those soon-to-be cowboy boys in a 1940s movie who would throw crickets in the milk to get the attention of a pretty woman and have weird dreams for a few nights because of the scene of choking up the white liquid and red lipstick.

Kevin took a conscious look at his pants. He swallowed a mouthful and rolled his not-so-masculine Adam's apple up and down.

"Yeah. So...... I don't think I'm the right person to be your - caregiver."

He tries to speak without stumbling, but his teeth always bite together against his wishes, as if he's ready to become part of the corpse. Maybe that's what people in Pompeii are like. Kevin thought despairingly. They watched as the smoke rolled in, swallowing everything they knew, encroaching on the way they had come. But they stopped running for that reason and watched with wide eyes how great the violence of nature was, reduced to future history in the face of the beauty of destruction.

John fell to the ground. He walked toward Kevin, like a curious young animal, with sharp milk teeth.

He stared at Kevin as if he never knew him or had never noticed Kevin's face before. Kevin doubted he was overly aware, and he was already on record as setting himself up for countless future troubles.

"Who taught you to say that, Kevin?"

John appeared extremely patient at the moment. His expression was serious, and the flowery educational campaign played as usual behind him, coating his small figure with a white border.

In front of him, the last bit of calm in Kevin's demeanor melted away.

"I told them...... John, they can see us." Kevin said as gallantly as he could, but he still wanted to cry. "I'm just a volunteer, I'm not even in high school yet, and I don't know how to give you the most - the best education. I didn't know I'd come over here and do all this...... they pick the best for you, right? They know what's best. Let me go, John, please. _Please._ "

Kevin let himself down. He sobbed.

John watched him cry. He breathed steadily and watched the liquid spill from Kevin's eyes. He felt no difference between Kevin and those women. And this was the Doctor's fault.

"What's that in your pocket?" John asked.

Kevin froze. He winced and looked at the boy. "An application form." He said.

He shuddered and took out the paper that had been folded twice and showed it to John. "If you agree, someone better than me will come and ...... won't have anyone pissing their pants anymore." He regretted adding that last sentence.

John's eyes perused the form, examining the marks printed on it. He read the rejection.

"You mean," the boy said, his eyes not leaving the form. "That if I agree, you can go? Back to your old life?"

The intensity of Kevin's nod could almost make his head fly off. He looked at John hopefully, with the wetness in his eyes that could have raised two fishes.

John was impressed. He was shocked at Kevin's vulnerability at the moment. There was a warmth in his heart that had been beating for ten years.

Of course, he'd seen other people's tears. But those people weren't chosen by him. He'd simply been forced to accept their vulnerability and their crying. Now Kevin shrank in front of him, a male so much taller than him, looking no different than those chosen by the Doctor. John had his own responsibilities. It was new.

"Open your mouth," John said.

Kevin hesitantly did as he was told. With the application form, it was as if he expected John wouldn't take anything from him.

He slowly opened his lips and John looked at the moistened hollow. He picked up the piece of paper and shoved it in bit by bit. He was careful not to get his fingers on Kevin's saliva.

The piece of paper refused to crumple into a ball. Kevin's saliva was dripping down his chin. He was afraid to close his mouth. So John helped him.

"Chew on it," John said briskly as if they were playing a game. "I think you can eat it."

Kevin stared at the camera for a few seconds. John waited for him to give up.

Kevin gave up. His sore jaw moved and the pulp bubbled in his mouth. He tasted the ink of a pen. Madelyn lent him this pen to fill out. He tasted every word he wrote on it. His name rolled bitterly in his own mouth.

 _My tongue must be blue._ Kevin thought as he swallowed.

He was actually quite happy about that. He should have thought John wouldn't approve. He wouldn't have been able to satisfy any ten-year-olds, let alone John. He should have been glad that John had let him off so easily.

"There's something else I picked you for," John said. "You can talk to fish, can't you?" He didn't use a questioning tone.

"Uh, yeah. But it doesn't seem to have much to do with us-"

"With what?" John asked. He pointed straight at Kevin's rib side. "With these?"

Kevin stiffened. John's fingertips were pointing at one side of his gill slits.

"......You knew?"

John didn't bother with such stupid questions. He reached out to lift Kevin's jacket. "Let me see."

Kevin pushed him away with a force he'd never thought possible.

John drifted back a distance. Like a small astronaut who had briefly lost control, he quickly stabilized. He looked at Kevin in surprise, then excitement.

"You know you have to show me, eventually." He said.

Kevin knew John was right.

But he didn't think it would be that hard. He walked in with dreams of becoming a hero, but he was destined to become a kid's pastime. The shame and power he'd harbored for years were going to be part of that pastime too. Kevin knew that the next thing he would do was to be hollowed out by John's gaze and become even more worthless. He didn't want this moment to come so soon.

He started to take off his jacket. Then the T-shirt. The vest was actually a little soaked with liquid from the gill spill, and when he lifted the fabric, the wet fabric lifted up with a small portion of the gill cover. It hurt so much that he took a breath.

He stripped off the top half. The camera still glowed red. No one came in.

Only John was in the room. John didn't say anything. He stared at Kevin's gills as if he'd lost his speech all at once.

"It moves on its own," John said. "That's amazing."

By the time he got to the second half of the sentence, he had reached out and touched the edge of the gill slits curiously.

"It's the exhale - the breathing organ." Kevin had been out of breath. "You'd better not touch it ...... I wouldn't."

"I'm not you," John said flatly. He tried to reach in with a finger, digging around like he was looking for something that had been left in there. "You seem to have something in there, Kevin. Do you need help?"

Kevin wanted to scream. Scream loudly. He wanted to scream then rip himself in half.

"That's gills." His voice trembled and he said in a teaching tone. "They're used to filter out foreign things. They're fragile."

All at once, he felt he'd done something wrong. John's eyes were red. The hot red light made him feel like he was looking directly at the sun. Kevin tried to apologize, but his tongue stuck to his palate and he couldn't move it.

The next second, however, John turned his head, and the heat vision destroyed the panoramic monitor in the corner with pinpoint accuracy. The instant alarm went off.

Kevin was still stunned. John pulled his fingers out of his gills and wiped them on his sweatpants again.

"I hope you're a good swimmer, Kevin." He said as he picked up his blanket and held it in his arms. "The edge of the island is a cliff. Now let's go."


	5. Chapter 5

"Don't talk to me while I'm cutting," John said, his eyes shooting lasers. "I don't want to sweep you off your feet at a time like this."

He was overthinking. His accomplice was quiet as a fish. A large metal wall collapsed in response, and all the tiny pipes inside it were broken, smoking and misting.

Kevin shuddered as if it had hit him.

He'd only had time to put the T-shirt back on, and now he regretted that choice - it was extremely absorbent, and it ate up all the blood that had splattered on it before getting a double taste of Kevin's gills beneath the fabric.

He could feel the dead man's blood swimming past his gill filaments, being neatly filtered and responsible for his breathing at the moment.

Kevin didn't like that feeling very much.

He didn't even have time to see how John had tackled eight strong, trained adults all at once.

Kevin remembered the room looking cramped up because of the bodies. And John just gave them a few gentle pushes, like crumpling a few sheets of colored paper. The sound they made when they snapped also sounded like paper.

John did it calmly, and he had the presence of mind to toss the blanket to Kevin for safekeeping before the door was opened.

Blood dripped from the ceiling, a sticky rain. John took his blanket and wiped his face. His child-advertising face reared up, as excited as a child returning late on a rainy day.

The corridor was empty. They moved forward covered in blood. John demanded that Kevin move forward, his blue eyes gleaming in the dark red warning lights.

"Are you scared?" John noticed that Kevin didn't move. He flew around Kevin twice in puzzlement, tilting his head to look at him, "I'll protect you, you know."

Maybe the blood on John's body made him less convincing for the first time. Kevin felt like the application form was already breaking down into urine streams.

"I need you alive." John cleared his throat for a change. "You can die at sea, but not now."

He really tried. John pulled out the patience he'd never had to face Kevin. And Kevin didn't seem the least bit grateful.

But Kevin was a lot quieter after John melted through the third wall.

Looking at Kevin, John felt a hazy sense of loneliness.

He understood that he was the only one in charge here. Even if the Doctor comes, he's the only one in charge. Neither Kevin nor anyone else could do anything useful. He was living with a bunch of losers. He didn't know if he was going to continue to live like this. He didn't know if his exodus would change that.

They broke out through a side wall, the barbed wire reduced to hot spaghetti as John watched.

Kevin didn't need him to say anything before he started running, which was good. John remembered the hound he'd seen in the video. But Kevin was much lamer than that.

They passed through a jungle. The trees in their way were destroyed by John. The sun was shining straight down as the canopy tilted down and every bit of moss was fresh.

John's pace slowed, his attention stolen by everything he saw. Occasionally, he let out a laugh like a boy entering a botanical garden for the first time.

"I like them better," John declared. "They're sturdier than people, and they don't hold as much water." He reached fascinatedly for the cross-section of a twig and showed it to Kevin.

Kevin still couldn't speak. It didn't bother John. He felt swollen, and the more he felt like he'd made the right choice. And that was just the world beyond the three layers of metal walls.

Helicopters appeared in the sky above them. The excursion was forced to come to an end.

John reluctantly went straight ahead for some distance, finally simply picking up Kevin to climb higher and then swooping down.

A ten-year-old super child holding a sixteen-year-old teenager. The final scene of The Monster in the Closet may be an homage to this moment.

Kevin is slimy. After John's fingers slipped several times, he finally began to speak.

"I'm going to die!" He cried out in mid-air. "I haven't got anything-"

"They won't do anything." John looked down at him with amusement. The blond hair on his forehead was blowing in the wind and the blood splattered on his face had dried. He looked like a boy who'd eaten too much chocolate pie. "They want me. They don't want you. Only I want you."

John said distractedly, knowing the Doctor was in the helicopter, his heartbeat steady, playing with his tongue over the mints. Maybe he was wondering why he'd lost to his boy. It was pleasant for John.

 _A surprise._ John thought. He saw the edge of the cliff, the waves roaring, the helicopter a mere bee compared to all this.

"I want you to jump, Kevin," John said. "And then take me swimming. I hope you're as good as you say you are."

"No, no! I didn't-"

John let go.

He watched as Kevin smashed into the water and sank.

 _Maybe Kevin wasn't really that good of a swimmer._ He thought gloomily. _If that was the case, he'd have to fish him out again before the Doctor got him back and aimed for the reef this time._

He counted to three Mississippi.

Kevin's head reappeared. He rummaged low in the water for a moment to retrieve the blanket. Then he looked up at John inquiringly.

John laughed out loud. He gave a strict naval salute to the helicopter, then dove headfirst.

\---

"You were saying, where are we?"

John played with a piece of shell, looking down to study the patterns on it. His clothes were mostly dry and the blood looked like he'd just gotten back from pottery class, so no harm is done.

"Uh, near my house," Kevin answered. He put the soaked, wrinkled change in the cash register and clumsily used the machine to make John's milkshake.

John didn't refuse. His first step was to eat the decorative fruit on top, then frown at the odd taste. "Do you think it's safe here?"

Kevin looked around the room. It was off-season for tourism and there weren't many people on the beach. The temperature was already starting to cool off.

"It's pretty safe." He replied hesitantly. "There's very little going on, people here are religious, like my parents-"

John broke the shell in half. Kevin silenced.

"Out of all the places, you picked here?" John looked at him. "What the hell is your problem?" He hopped off the bar, his milkshake half-drunk. "Don't you think they'll come looking for us?"

Kevin didn't say anything. He looked down at the body of the original owner here in the bar and tried to shove him into the food cupboard. His stomach was empty, so he wouldn't vomit.

"He's been here since I was very young," Kevin said. "No one hated him."

John took a pair of children's sunglasses off the shelf and put them on himself. He looked directly at the sun through the lenses and quickly grew bored again. "Do you want us to get caught, Kevin?"

Kevin looked at him.

"Maybe it's for the best." He explained. "You're important to them, so they should be worried right now ......"

"And then you think they'll be grateful to you if you get me back?"

John pushed his sunglasses up to his forehead, exposing his eyes. "No way, Kevin. You'll be stuffed in the closet, too."

He laughed so hard his eyes narrowed. "You're _fucked._ "

Kevin felt like the end of the world was happening right now.

"I picked you because you can swim." John looked over at the ocean. "You know what I can do, don't you? I won't stay there until - he's so old." He pointed to the body. "You should take me on the run and then make sure I'm safe so I can make sure you are."

He looked sincere. "I don't want to hurt you, Kevin. Don't try any tricks."

Kevin found himself getting used to the threats from John. Maybe he shouldn't have trusted those people at all - whether it was the Doctor or Madelyn or the janitor, they didn't care about him at all. They'd dumped him on John and then ignored him, allowing him to be held hostage by a ten-year-old boy to this day.

A thought struck him: they probably didn't even know John as well as he did. They knew John was dangerous but never treated him like a child. Maybe that's why John rarely sounded like a real child - he had no frame of reference and had to keep mimicking those around him, eventually learning to be a ten-year-old demon with a mouth full of adult language.

For a moment, Kevin felt a bit sorry for John. Only in front of John can he feel a little bit of real superiority - he's been bullied, discriminated against, and hurt by his peers. But that was all predicated on "peers". Exclusion presupposes that there is a group to which one aspires. But John never had that. John didn't pick up a dying goldfish and become friends with it.

John only had Kevin.

Kevin's tone was much gentler when he spoke again. "So, do you like the ocean? I made friends with some fish and we can-"

"Your friend is dirty and smelly," John replied. "Take me to your house, I need a shower."


	6. Chapter 6

Before Kevin opened the door, he was actually vaguely expecting John to make a few comments about his residence. Even just a little curiosity.

It might be strange to say so - John was the only human - or superhuman that Kevin had ever brought home with him. Either one sounded a lot cooler than fish.

Kevin lived in one of the small apartments his parents had previously rented out. He was supposed to spend the summer working odd jobs at the ice cream parlor and holding out some hope of getting a date with the new girls who had transferred over (the local girls had never been interested in him). That way by the end of the summer, Kevin would at least reap the benefits of a summer of free air conditioning and about twenty sampling slots.

But he preferred not to do that. He'd made a stupid mistake. Kevin thought he could morph from a freak into some kind of superhero, but now he's covered in blood and is a villain who steals government property.

He opens the door and feels sorry for himself. John enters the room and, upon seeing the dirty clothes and snack packets littering the floor, unabashedly switched to floating.

To Kevin's disappointment, John didn't ask anything. His collection of fish illustrations and Nature magazine covers didn't pique the boy's interest at all. The little murderer dragged the bloodstained blanket across the bathroom, easily crossing over everything in his ordinary daily routine and disappearing into the bathroom.

Kevin fell onto the couch, the pile of clothes on the backrest smashing down and spreading all over his face.

He felt a twinge of nostalgia.

Countless times he blinked, doing nothing more than draining the blood that had splashed into his eyes and hoping it was just a failed nightmare. He wouldn't have to answer for any murders, and no supernatural beings would be showering in his bathroom. Now he was back in his safe nest, exhausted as he was every time he threw himself down on the cushions, but nothing was the same.

Kevin turned on the TV. The news was broadcasting a small undersea earthquake and two congressmen were shouting at each other in the studio.

He changed the channel a few times, realizing he was looking for John and himself.

But there was nothing. The world was operating as usual. It's as if the secret base on the remote island, the bodies piled up in a child's bedroom, the gaping hole in the wall never existed. He and John had been abandoned by reality, becoming the only witnesses to each other.

The thought sent shivers down his spine.

John flew out of the bathroom, wearing his Oceanarium souvenir T-shirt over his body. Blond hair clung wetly to his forehead and water dripped from his eyelashes. His lips were red, his face clean, his teeth straight, and he was patrolling barefoot above the garbage in this room like a new god looking down on a field.

Kevin gawked at him. John's lips moved a few times and he began to speak, clearly excited.

"......You must show me, do you understand?" He said.

"Show you what?"

John keyed off the refrigerator sticker on the dolphin's eyes. "Everything."

Kevin ordered take-out and they sat down to eat pizza for a while. The TV was on the Nature Channel.

"Why did you kill him?" Kevin had the thrill of vomiting when he asked it. "I told you, he's a nice guy."

John sucked the ketchup from his fingers.

"I forgot." He answered after a moment, looking at Kevin a little puzzled. "You've been thinking about that?"

"No, it's just ...... I've known him since I was very young. He's always been there."

"You were friends?" John sat a little closer to Kevin.

Kevin shook his head. "I guess not. But-"

"You have some nice powers too."

The orcas on the TV opened their giant mouths. John, fed up, curled up on the couch, his head resting on Kevin's lap. He yawned, his half-dried blond hair leaving wet trails on Kevin's shorts. "You can take me to swim, sing to the fish-"

"-is _talking_ , I can talk to the fish ......"

"Maybe the Doctor will get to you someday," John said. "And then you won't be able to order pizza." His blue eyes looked at Kevin. "You'll be living in that room of mine forever. And what will you do then?"

The water on the TV screen glowed a light green.

"I will...seek help," Kevin answered without bottoming out. "But maybe it's better there, I mean, they should know more about my power than I do. So many people are taking care of you, John. You're important to them."

"How did you do that?" John was silent for a moment, speaking in confusion. "You lied to my face, Kevin. How did you do that?"

The muscles on Kevin's lap tensed.

Kevin looked ridiculous. John imagined him doing that to Kevin, too. Crush him, tear him apart, discard him, and then continue to live in his house. He'd seen how he ordered takeout and knew how to turn on the TV. It didn't seem hard. He could burn what was left of Kevin and make the place his own country.

But he was really curious. His curiosity even outweighed his anger. John decided that he had given Kevin unmatched preferential treatment, but had only asked Kevin for the bare minimum. He couldn't understand why Kevin still chose to lie.

"...... I didn't," Kevin mumbled. He looked at John and realized he had already lost the battle.

"You're dangerous," Kevin said. Maybe if he was given another sixteen years of charity, he could find a smarter way to say this. "You can do those - you've been killing people, John."

John sat up and looked at Kevin unblinkingly.

"You don't seem to care about any of that. Someone needs to tell you what to do. You can't just do that to people."

"Is that all?"

"I think so."

John was silent for quite some time. He wiped his hair with the blanket, which still hadn't been cleaned of the blood. Kevin didn't dare look at him.

"Do you think the Doctor is better suited to take care of me than you are?" John asked.

Kevin looked down, watching John's shin kick against his coffee table. For a moment, it seemed like he was just a normal boy next to him, that the monster that shot lasers out of his eyes and killed everyone with a single push had never existed.

Such a fantasy gave him courage. Kevin nodded.

"But I've known the Doctor for the longest time." John's gaze fell on Kevin's face. "It's like he's been around forever. Do you understand? Like, uh, that guy who sells milkshakes on the beach."

He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"The thing is, Kevin," John didn't know he was sounding exactly like the Doctor at the moment. "If he was supposed to tell me 'what to do', shouldn't he have done it already?"

Kevin looked at him in confusion. John felt irritated. He regretted explaining this to Kevin.

"He didn't stop me." John leaned back on the couch. "He was eating candies while he watched me doing those things."

An unfamiliar sourness appeared near John's chest. His teeth clenched together because of the sourness, and John shivered for no apparent reason. He wasn't cold at all.

"Don't you have anything you want to say?" He slapped the glass Kevin had just picked up flying to the other side of the living room.

"...... I didn't know about this." Kevin stammered. "I'm sorry."

He looked over at the plastic cup, which was firmly embedded in the wall. Cracks crept all the way up to the ceiling.

John was already up, and he'd wrapped the blanket around himself, those dark red stains draped jaggedly behind him. He was still floating, clearly distraught.

"He did it on purpose." John breathed heavily. "He wanted to see me kill someone. He wanted to see me kill you, from the first day. So he could replace you with the ones he found himself. You were nothing to him, Kevin."

"But you didn't - didn't kill me," Kevin said.

John stopped talking again. He was patrolling around the room like a doomsday robot that had awakened.

The Doctor's words reappeared in his mind. "It's something you can do, John."

John hated when this happened.

He hadn't told Kevin that he'd melted through that door when he was much younger and walked the incredibly long hallway alone to find the Doctor waiting for him at the elevator door.

He didn't know the difference between life and death then, and a baby tooth had just fallen out. John licked the wound in his mouth and looked up at the Doctor, full of joy that he would be rewarded - yes, he was just glad he had found the Doctor of his own volition and finally didn't have to wait for the Doctor to show up in his room.

But the Doctor didn't give him the same smile. He simply looked at John.

 _You can only play in your room, John._ He said.

John went back on his own. It was hard for him to figure out why he did that. There was something in the expression on the Doctor's face then that eternally hurt him. Every time he had another thought of leaving the room after that, the Doctor's look would reappear.

John sometimes wished his memories were a specific person. Because he could kill a man, make him stop talking and be quiet forever.

"You ran away so you could stop killing people?" Kevin made a little noise, unaware that he had shrunk into the corner of the couch.

John snapped back to life.

"Of course not." He looked over at Kevin with a smile. "I didn't want to just kill the ones he threw at me."


	7. Chapter 7

Kevin walked on the beach. The tide was rising. He bent down with joy to touch the water but found that the tide itself consisted of a thousand little silvery fish corpses.

"If I were you, I'd start crying a little later." The Morgan Freeman goldfish said.

Kevin turned back. His goldfish friend had become so large it was stranded on the beach, its tail swinging, raising a sandy mist.

He approached his friend, looking at his own reflection on the scales.

"Do you think I'm going to be in trouble?" Kevin opened his mouth and realized he sounded only thirteen.

The goldfish's large eyes looked at him. It was no longer blind and looked wise and sad. "You're always in trouble, Kevin. That's living."

"I know," Kevin said. The sunset was like an overhead light on a dental table. "I just want this to be over."

The goldfish was silent for a few seconds. "You sound like me when we first met." It sighs. "I'll run out of things to teach you someday, Kevin."

Kevin opened his eyes and he nearly fell off the couch. The cracks in the ceiling seemed to be extending.

Memories returned to his limbs: John went to his bedroom to sleep on his own, he went back to the living room to drink some beer, which didn't do much to soothe him, and then he jerked off to the commercials on the adult channels. They never showed the key parts, much to Kevin's frustration.

The TV went into hibernation and he fumbled to the remote to turn it off. The room was suddenly filled with an odd sense of static.

Kevin got up and cleaned up the pizza box and paper towels on the couch. As he passed the bedroom with the trash bag, he hesitated to drop the bag, then gently pushed the door open.

John hadn't closed the curtains and the window was equally wide open. The night breeze passed smoothly through the room as the door was opened.

The small killing machine was lying on the mattress, clutching his blood-stained blanket.

In the moonlight, John's blond hair looked divine. He looked like the hero of a children's movie, sleeping soundly in an Indian camp while the chief's daughter watched him all night.

 _Maybe this was a chance._ Kevin stared blankly at the sleeping boy. _It's not too late. You know what he's growing up to be. You know that no one can stop him. He'll kill as he pleases, take everything that doesn't belong to him, and rip the nice guy who gave an eight-year-old you a free milkshake in half at the slightest sign of discomfort._

_And he hasn't hurt you. Not even once._

_A weak man would think that was kindness. But you know he's not benevolent. He's a fucking doomsday machine._

_What's the definition of a hero? To save more people? You know he could boil an ocean and invite you to eat caviar. Maybe by the time he's at your age, he'll be flying over a burning city, fire trucks racing by one at a time beneath him._

_He trusts you. It's the only thing about him that's like a little kid. He trusts you because he's determined that you won't do anything to him. He dared you to fall asleep in your bed with confidence._

_You will be appreciated. After you've benefited humanity._

Kevin stepped closer to John, who tried not to make a sound. The boy's back rose and fell slightly.

Kevin reached out and gently pressed his hand to the back of John's neck. The boy's warmth came over him.

He realized he had no idea what to do to kill John.

It was so absurd it made him want to laugh. Kevin had never considered it in that long hesitation. He'd forgotten that John couldn't be harmed. The Doctor had left no weakness for his little Achilles.

Eventually, Kevin tried to take the blanket from John's hand. The part with the blood on it was caked.

John's tiny fingers clenched. It took a lot of effort for Kevin to get it off.

Then he left the bedroom and washed the blanket in the bathroom. Red-orange water trickled down the sink. Now John's blanket smelled like lavender and sea salt instead of disinfectant.

"Thank you."

Kevin was shocked. The white children's shirt with John's blood on it fell to the bottom of the pool. He clumsily went to pick it up and turned his head to see John standing in the doorway, his bare feet on the tiles.

Something was not quite the same about John. Kevin weighed his impending exit uneasily.

"Are you awake? Since when ......"

"I know you've been here, Kevin." John stepped toward him. His cheeks were flushed and his smile was pleasing with two canine teeth. "You watched me sleep and then did my laundry."

_He knew it. He knew it. He knew it._

Kevin's brain was screaming. Was this the last image he'd seen? - the end gradually approaches, with an angelic smile. Next, those eyes would shoot lasers, and his heart that has beating for sixteen years would retire early. He's going to meet his goldfish. That dream was an omen. He should have thought of that. Who did he think he was to kill John?

"Aren't you feeling well?" John had walked up to him.

"It's not what you think, John, I'm just ......"

John hugged him.

Without pushing, the boy's arms were loosely wrapped around Kevin's waist. He rubbed his cheek against Kevin's belly, snuggly.

"Don't be afraid," John said. "I understand what you're trying to do. Kevin. You can do whatever you want."

Kevin lowered his head, the boy's eyes shining brightly.

"I need you, please." John lowered his voice as if telling a secret. Kevin had a bad feeling.

"You should go back to sleep," Kevin said. He didn't know where he got the strength to speak to John like that.

"No," John said firmly. "Let me stay with you for a little while longer. Just a little while." He added. "You know you want me to do that."

The boy tugged at a cloth band and untied it. Kevin realized it was the pull cord of his gym shorts.

Kevin pushed John away. The wet children's shirt hit the floor.

" _What are you doing?!_ " Kevin's voice had changed.

John was pushed back two steps by him. The boy blinked and didn't seem angry at all. "Do you want me to take off first?"

"Who taught you to do - to do these?" Kevin shuddered and went to pick up the shirt, he couldn't do it anyhow.

John helped him. He picked the dress up and held it laboriously to Kevin.

"No one." He said. "Kevin, you're so nervous. I thought you liked this. You liked me the day you met me, didn't you?"

Kevin didn't pick it up. John stood on his own tiptoes and tossed it into the sink.

"I will do whatever you want me to do." The boy said. "You're so kind, Kevin, you deserve this."

There was a muffled bang at the door.

Kevin stepped across the room past John, intending to go see what was going on.

A small hand grabbed him by the corner of his cloth.

When Kevin turned back, intending to deny John once more, he was surprised to find the skin on the small hand rolled and swollen like it's burning. The change traveled along his wrist and up to the cuffs of John's short sleeves.

A fat boy with apparently serious weight problems stood in John's place and looked at Kevin. His eyes were full of tears.

"I'm sorry." He cried. "I'm in too much pain. It really hurts too much. They told me to hold you back ...... I can only last so long. Don't tell them, please. I'm sorry."

Kevin pushed the strange fat boy out of the way and raced out of the bathroom.

The bedroom's ajar door was glowing red.

He opened that door and found that the wall with the window had disappeared, the steel bar barely exposed. A helicopter hovered outside the window.

John floated in the air, the light in his eyes was cooling down.

"I thought you were dead." The blue-eyed genuine boy said in surprise, his face showing his joy. "Oh, you have a red spot on your forehead."

The words left his mouth and John turned his head. Kevin closed his eyes. Heat lay on his face.

"It's gone now," John said. "Have you seen my blanket?"

There was the sound of crashing and breaking at the living room door. Footsteps.

"In the bathroom," Kevin said. He actually didn't stutter. "I washed it along with your clothes."

John shrugged. "Take the blanket. Forget the clothes."

They walked out of the bedroom together. John handled the soldiers and guns at a speed that Kevin couldn't see. Kevin walked straight to the bathroom.

He took the blanket off the towel rack and the fat boy who could deform cowered under the sink, his hands hugging his knees.

They stared at each other. Kevin felt as if he should say something.

"It's not your fault." He finally said.

After that, he left the bathroom with the blanket in his arms, not forgetting to turn off the lights. John was waiting for him in the living room, clearly impatient.

"I need to get myself some gloves." The boy looked at the bits of guts on his hands unhappily. "That's disgusting."

Sirens were faintly audible. Dawn falls.

 _There's a ten-year-old murderer floating in my living room and a shape-shifter in the bathroom who thinks I'm a pedophile._ Kevin thought. _I can't believe I'm still breathing._

"Where should we go?" John drifted over impatiently and wiped his hands on Kevin's shirt. "Never mind, let me know on the way."


	8. Chapter 8

"He didn't come," John grunted.

The helicopter's body sank in the sea behind them. The bodies of silver flying fish shredded by propellers sprayed everywhere, their scales scattering like snowflakes.

Kevin forgot to mourn. The waves were scarlet, crawling like an expensive carpet.

John still held him across his arms, like a troublesome cargo. They clung to each other, one monster holding the other close.

"We should follow the current," Kevin said.

But John wouldn't give up, and he held Kevin in his arms and paddled around the sea a few more times. "Maybe he'll come. Just wait."

Kevin thought he was hallucinating. "You want to wait for the pursuers to come?"

"The Doctor didn't come. This is serious." John looked for the first time so disturbed. "He should have seen this, Kevin, he shouldn't - shouldn't have been absent."

"But -"

"Make one more noise and I'll weld you into the helicopter and light the fuel tank."

It was probably Kevin's delusion. He felt like John was about to cry. So he silenced it and tried to make himself and the blanket add up to less weight.

The sun was shining straight down and the sea, which looked like a thousand shards of mirror, cutting through the sinking dead.

They landed on an island. Kevin thought it looked like a fake, like some kind of movie set for disillusioned villains to depress here, waiting for superheroes to save them from the barbarity of the world and throw them in jail.

John fidgeted so much that the blanket was about to fail to soothe him. "What do you think he's doing?" He asked Kevin. "I ran away. Nobody's worth him staying in that place. What could he be doing?"

Kevin remembered the fat boy who had made him sick all over. "Maybe there were other kids ......"

"No." John snapped. He leaned in close to Kevin and stared at him fiercely. "Without me, he has nothing."

There was silence.

"Do you want him to come?" Kevin asked softly.

John sat on the beach holding his blanket. He looked up at the sky as if expecting something.

"I shouldn't have picked you, Kevin." He said. "Anyone would have been better for this than you. You ruined my trip. It's your fault."

John looked at Kevin. "If I hadn't chosen you, maybe he would have come."

Kevin didn't know what to say. He wanted to apologize, but he didn't know what to apologize for. He could see that John was a little upset and that John would start to get angry if he pointed that out to him. He didn't want to see John angry, especially when he was the only person the boy could kill.

"I'm going to get some food. There are coconuts here. Do you like coconuts?"

John sat up, the hot, sunburned sand spilling off of him.

"No." He said. "I'm going back."

Kevin froze for a moment. Time seemed to stand still with him. A strange feeling gathered in the pit of his stomach. "Back where?"

"You know where," John replied distractedly. "Back to that room. I can always come out anyway." He paused. "I can fly. I didn't need you in the first place."

He glanced at Kevin. "You're free."

"No," Kevin said.

He just said it. He forgot he shouldn't say something like that to John. He forgot that he shouldn't make John angry. He forgot that John could kill him at any time. No, not exactly forgetting - he didn't care.

Kevin found himself, to his horror, in a rage.

"No?" John repeated in surprise. He floated over to Kevin, who realized he was just an angry ten-year-old boy.

"You begged me to let you go, remember? And you asked them to fill out that application." John said slowly. "You don't care about me. You only cared about your own escape. You hid in the bathroom, hoping they'd kill me, and you didn't have to watch."

"I thought we were friends," Kevin said. He'd never spoken out loud before. "We had fun together, and-"

He had thought he wouldn't be able to finish the sentence at all, that John would interrupt him, maybe just kill him. But John didn't.

"- and you're just mad that the Doctor doesn't care about you."

John's eyes reddened.

Kevin was scared to death, but his tongue was still speaking. And getting more coherent.

"But he didn't care about you in the first place. He was even willing to recruit me...... He doesn't care what kind of care you get, I guess. And you shouldn't have cared about him either."

He closed his eyes, imagining the light shooting itself right through. They say the brain doesn't have pain nerves and it could be over in a second.

Kevin waited a few seconds and nothing happened.

"What do you think you know?" John whispered. The red glow in his eyes died out, and a sunset-like look of decadence appeared on the boy's face.

They were silent for a while longer. Kevin got some coconut like he'd said he would. John watched him as he busied himself.

"I know what you're worried about," John said. "That they'll come for you and then make you disappear. You don't want that."

Kevin's mouth was open. In fact, he'd never thought about it. John leaned close to him and reached out his small hand to touch the top of his head.

"I can help you, Kevin." He said. "I know how to make you not hurt."

Kevin looked at John. He knew the boy was serious.

"You're welcome," John said generously.

Kevin didn't hold back his laughter. He covered his face with his hands and pressed his fingers hard against his eyes until the bright red in his vision turned to a harsh lemon yellow and fizzy emerald green. The coconut bone he'd just opened rolled away some distance, and a trail of that precious water dripped out. Kevin didn't care anymore.

"You're killing me." He said. "And I'm going to say thank you."

"Before anyone else does, yes," John answered patiently. "I said you didn't need to say thank you."

Kevin took his hand away and he found himself crying a little. Why was it that people were always ashamed of the fluids that came out of them? Whether it's tears, urine, or something secreted from the gills of a freak?

"Can I say something?" He heard himself say.

John nodded.

Kevin looked behind John as the sun began to sink westward, the golden waves kissing the beach tenderly. He watched it for a long moment, wishing he could remember the scene. Then he spoke.

"You're a coward." He said. "You think you can escape, but you always go back on your own. If you ask me, you're terrified of the outside world. You need me. You're scared of the ocean, so you need me. You don't know why the ocean exists, you can see the fish, but you don't know what they're saying. You keep missing things all the time, whether it's pizza or TV shows. You blame it on the Doctor because you're terrified of taking charge yourself. But it's your own fault, John. You didn't want to run away from there at all, you just wanted the Doctor to come to you and show that he cared, like it was a runaway. And some people - me - are going to die for it. You and the Doctor alike. You selfish fuckers. You're all the same. That's why you're going to grow up to be like him. You know you're going to ruin the world one day, and you don't even want to understand it. I regret having met you. And I regret trying to be friends with you."

 _Now he's going to tear my corpse into fireworks._ Kevin thought breathlessly. _If I can do it._

_Come on, Kevin. It's the welfare of mankind._

The sunset vibrated bright red behind John. The boy's face was in shadow, and Kevin couldn't even recognize those beautiful blue eyes.

What was John's expression at this point? The boy only rose higher and higher.

The sea parted left and right like in the Bible before the eyes hidden in the shadows shot out of heat vision, naked to reveal one of its great creations.

The creature was six point seven meters long, weighed five tons, and had an astounding bite - that was how it was described at the Oceanarium and training facility. In Kevin's world, it was just a phrase that came from underwater, like the voice of a Hollywood actor from the Golden Age: _"Are you sure you want to do this?"_

Kevin just had to acquiesce.

The orca seemed to take John's calf and then the boy's entire body with great ease. Then he smashed back into the water, dragging its prize with it, intending to return to someplace where the water was bluer than glass. It was easy for him. He wanted to make Kevin happy.

It wasn't the first time the orca had done this. He's done it with ease. When he was two years old, a group of men caught him and greased him up so they could sell him to Sea World in a dry cabin. When he was ten, he joined two older whales in biting a young diver to death. He still remembers the way her red hair spread out in the water and her small, astonished gaze. When he was eighteen, he met a drunk who had snuck into the zoo. He was lying on the railing, so he lured him into the water. The orca leaped up in front of him, spraying water and topping those plastic balls to please him. Finally, the drunk jumped into the water. He allowed him to swim with himself for a while, then bit his leg and dragged him to the bottom of the pool. The orca watched him suffocate. Bubbles escaped from the human's mouth in all directions, and unlike the diver, he had a look of betrayal in his eyes. This was refreshing. He played with the corpse all night again until morning when it was retrieved. At twenty-nine, he did the same old trick with a female trainer, but unfortunately, this time he was seen. Humans were always getting smarter. Kevin heard his complaints and secretly told him that they planned to sell him cheaply to Japan, where there were people who wanted to eat his flesh. Then Kevin destroyed the ship and together they watched those people struggle in the water. "I still hate you, all of you." He said to Kevin. "But I owe you one."

This was the one.

Kevin wanted one of his serial killer friends to kill the other.

The orca disappeared into the water, and there was nothing left to shield Kevin from the sunset before him. Kevin breathed once. Twice.

Something vibrated violently under the water. Twice.

Then there was what seemed like a whole century of silence.

A bit of foam floated up. The water starts at some central point, and little by little it turns red. The sand was red too. There was a strong fishy smell.

John came straight up from under the water. Most of his blood washed off on the way back. The boy's eyes were still glowing red.

A helicopter, a team of guards, a whale, it made no difference to him.

 _So I'm the next._ Kevin thought. _It's my turn now._

John didn't approach him. He was just dropping a little altitude to make sure John could hear him.

"You did that on purpose." Kevin heard the boy say. "But I forgive you. Because you're weak."

John wiped his face. Kevin could see his face now. He was giving a smile.

"That was fun."

After saying that, a sonic boom exploded from the spot where the boy had existed. John was gone.

As the sunset fell, Kevin took a few steps back, away from his friend's blood, and then he went to pick a second coconut.

 _I'm going back too._ He thought. _I'm gonna go back and contact the insurance company. Someone will pay for it. Then I'll find a new place to live. I'll change my last name._

As for John, he'll never, never, never see John again.


	9. Chapter 9

John opened his eyes.

He subconsciously reached out and grabbed the quilt. The soft fabric made a rustling sound. The sensor lights in the corners of the room were on. If he got up and opened the curtains, he would find that the light in the room was a little lower than the newly risen sun, protecting his eyes that were harder to hurt than diamonds.

He was still trying on the new uniform when they asked John what kind of room he wanted. The designer got wet just watching him put on his gloves.

He deliberately drifted over to talk to her, tasting a tearing pain in the way she looked up at him.

What did that feel like? She looked at him, knowing full well that this was the highest point of her existence on earth. As wrinkles crept across her unimpressive face, as her white hair was pulled back behind her head, she would still talk to her cat about what she saw in the here and now - the god in charge of the future lowering his gaze to her, wearing armor she had sewn. He was handsome and intimidating, and she couldn't tell which part fascinated her more.

This was it. The highest point. From now on, her life would be spent savoring this moment. John watched with a lack of interest as, beneath her skin, her tender red lungs tried to provide a breath. Her blood juices were abundant, and her womb was healthy. Did he need to do that? John measured. It would be perfectly fine, and no one would stop him. She would welcome him, clumsily catering to his desires, dying of bliss every second of the day.

Of course, there was also the possibility that he would accidentally crush her kidneys or shoot straight through her womb, as he had done the last few times. She'd say, "John, I'm so warm inside." And he'd watch the blood flood her organs. But he wouldn't stop. No one could make him stop. She could cry and wail, but he would continue. And then there would come to a point when she would start asking what she had done wrong as if he were the punishment fate had prepared for her. This would often infuriate John. Sometimes he would keep doing it until he could no longer identify her.

Finally, he disposed of her and the earth continued to turn. She was rotting somewhere, so he didn't like to step on the ground.

"Your decisions are important, John." Madelyn was still waiting at the door. Her gaze swept over John and the costume designer without judgment. "We'll order the room to your specifications."

John looked up. The interest that had just been raised quickly vanished. He dropped to the floor and headed for the door. Madelyn smiled patiently. He had already forgotten the designer's face.

"Hmm." He grunted and shrugged. "I want it to be a bigger place."

They did as they were told. Every day since leaving the Doctor, John felt a little more empowered. Sometimes he was surprised someone would try so hard to please him before he'd even opened his mouth to threaten them. But he'd adapted well. Maybe these spotlights were what the world owed him. He'd proved himself worthy of it all.

They pushed too hard sometimes. John got a whole floor. He had his own elevator and dining car. They set up three beds for him, four TVs, and workout equipment that was indistinguishable from what looked like building blocks. The walls were wallpapered, the floor tiles were elegant and simple, and he even had a crystal chandelier.

John was furious about this. He advised everyone involved in the interior design to jump off the eighteenth floor. Then he smashed the floor to smithereens and sat in the rubble, watching the news.

Madelyn came through the ruined door with a metal tray in her hand, but John's attention was drawn to something else entirely. Madelyn had a dull-colored blanket on her arm.

"Someone's really considering your offer, John." She sat on the liverwurst couch and scooped a plastic child's spoon of macaroni out of the tray. "You're scaring them."

John looked at her. Her red nails pinched at the pale blue handle of the spoon, like a couple of fake flowers.

He found himself unable to focus on the forest fires that were on the news.

Madelyn patted the spot next to her. John sat over. He was already far taller than her. He lowered his head and opened his mouth to take in the food she fed him.

"They think they know everything," John said. "This isn't fucking IKEA. I'll sleep here. Why doesn't anyone understand that?"

"They don't know anything about you," Madelyn answered softly. The scent of her body came through. "Getting them to know you better is exactly what we're doing. More people will get to know you, and then fall in love with you. You need to be ready for this." A second spoonful had been delivered to his mouth.

So he fell silent and ate more. Even the broccoli was all gone. When Madelyn swirled the small cup of corn kernels, he stopped her.

"Don't use the spoon," John said. "Use your hands."

Madelyn didn't move. She looked down while John's gaze still crawled near her cheekbones.

After a few seconds, she put down the spoon and raised a hand to gather a handful of her blonde hair piled on her shoulder. That's when she looked at John again.

John was trembling. He was tense all over. In that uniform, his flesh tensed and trembled. He stared at Madelyn with his eyes far hotter than anything he'd ever cut open.

John at the moment reminded Madelyn of him when he'd first returned. Timid, weary, and hungry for attention. The Doctor didn't seem at all surprised by the outcome. He only stood watching John from a distance in the elevator before he closed the door. She was the one who had led him back to his room, discarded the dirty print T-shirt he was wearing, and helped him shower.

John cried as her hand, with its clean white foam, caressed the top of the boy's head.

He didn't make a sound at all. Just a gentle twitch of muscle as the water ran down his cheeks. The most dangerous boy in the world cried like a mute.

Madelyn was twenty-two. She pondered how the other girls would react to his tears. They'd panic and then try to hold him gingerly, telling him everything would be okay.

And he wouldn't believe any of that. He'd go into a rage like he did every time, and then kill her.

So she didn't do anything. She continued to clean that blonde hair of his, and the blood disappeared from it without a trace. She cleaned the boy like she was cleaning a child's water bottle.

As she cleaned John's hair, the boy spoke.

"Don't go." He said.

So she didn't go. Madelyn took off her heels and jacket, then her overalls. Her stockings hung over the edge of the tub. John watched her do this.

She stepped her barefoot into the warm water, wearing only her petticoat, and squeezed in beside the boy with one arm around him.

Twelve hours later, Madelyn Stillwell got a cold and a promotion. A very, very thorough promotion. When she woke up in the downtown hospital, the flowers on her pillow had Edgar's autograph on them. He wished her a speedy recovery so he could tour her the new office.

Movement outside the window interrupts their stare-down. A man fell fast. The sound of a car alarm came from downstairs.

A vague scream. John sips a kernel of corn from her fingertips.

Like every time, she appreciates these moments of vulnerability in John, then saves him.

God saves everything, only she saves God.

Eventually, John's room becomes a pure white space. No furniture, no appliances, just a single bed in the most unattractive corner of the room. Scattered on the floor were a few small toys made by Vought.

It was a whole floor. A whole floor of emptiness. That's John.

"You'll fill it up," Madelyn said.

John touched his bedspread. "Promise me one thing." He looked at Madeleine. "The blanket."

"You want it?"

"No." John glanced at the blanket in Madelyn's arms. "Throw it away for me."

John occasionally dreamed of snippets. About a man who dared to leave him behind. A not-so-wise choice. A boring escape. In some dreams, he ended up killing the crying, gill-bearing freak. In other dreams, he was wrapped in inexplicable darkness and the warm fishy smell engulfed him. It was as if the universe closed in on him. He used his powers and saw skeletons and veins stretching around him. It was like John was back in some familiar place where he didn't have to prove anything - no Doctor, no Madelyn, no room. He didn't have to fly to float.

Sometimes, like today, when he woke up, he thought the blanket was still clutched in his hand.

John shuffled then put on his uniform. The Stars and Stripes alterations pleased him. He stepped into the elevator and crossed the hallway, people giving way in awe.

He made several turns and opened a small door. Everyone inside stood up at once and he smiled, raising his hand and pressing it down to show them how to stay put.

In front of them, a large single-sided mirror was embedded in the wall. At the other end, there was only a table, a female assistant, and a camera.

Across from the camera sat a helpless man. He must have just gotten a haircut and is wearing a grey hoodie. The zipper is a faded dolphin.

It was a hot summer day outside the window, and under the heavy fabric, two rows of gill slits were writhing and squeezing, naked under John's gaze.

John held out his hand and a supervisor immediately let him have his headset.

"I can ...... talk to fish." The man sounded a little agitated, perhaps because he was thirsty. "That's why I know they need help. I'd like you to start a foundation for -"

John returned the headset.

"I want this one." He said. "I get to pick my future team members and friends, right?"

The supervisor thought he understood something. "Do you need us to bring him here? If you want to ......"

"No." John was in a good mood. "When the procedure is over, have him go to the conference room. Alone."

He looked over at the glass. Kevin's mouth was still moving, like one of those bubble-breathing fish in the oceanarium. John patted the supervisor's shoulder.

"Don't say anything. He likes surprises."

**The End**


End file.
